National Institues of Health

Name of Initiative or Program Activity:

Prevention Sciences
Initiative

Description of Initiative:

This initiative is devoted to the Prevention Science
Initiatives of the
Office of AIDS
Research. These dollars will be used to supplement existing grants, or as a
way to expedite an award. Through these dollars Institutes are encouraged to
have currently funded investigators seek supplemental funding on aspects of
their grants that are of particular relevance to minorities. In FY98, the OAR
awarded $9.5 million in special funds through the Prevention Science Research
Initiative, to support new and/or expanded HIV intervention and prevention
programs targeting minority populations. Funds were awarded to such projects
as:

risk reduction among Latinas;

injection drug use and high risk sexual behaviors at the
U.S./Mexico border;

culturally sensitive behavioral interventions for HIV+
Hispanics;

HIV risk reduction in drug abusing minority youth;

a phase I clinical trial testing a novel topical
microbicide for prevention of HIV transmission with will include primarily
minority women;

intervention studies focusing on drug and substance
abusing youth; and

a study of HIV-infected injecting drug users receiving
highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART). There is no RFA for these funds
as these are targeted to the Institutes, who contact their grantees advising
them of the availability of these funds through the Prevention Sciences
Initiative.

Through this mechanism, Institutes respond to a list of
priorities provided by the
Office of AIDS Research to identify appropriate
investigators/grants. This list has traditionally included research on
high-risk populations with high impact for the intervention, targeting youth,
women and minorities in particular.

Eligible Entities:

Investigators funded through an
existing NIH grant

Type
of Funding:

Supplement announced by the
individual Institutes to their existing grantees.

This is an expansion of recent
pilot work the Office of AIDS Research has conducted with a national minority
organization, using the technology of web-TV. In FY98, NIH in conjunction with
the National Minority AIDS Council conducted a series of town hall style
meetings to bring the cutting edge research findings to the community. These
meetings were designed, planned and executed by community agencies within a
region, including HIV positive individuals. The participants were primarily
people of color. However, if individuals and/or agencies were unable to attend
the workshop, the information was not in a format that could be easily
retrieved or recreated. Through the technology of web-TV supported by this
project, these town meetings as well as any state-of-the-art
lectures/presentations co-sponsored or supported by OAR/NIH on HIV/AIDS can be
accessed, as they will be stored and catalogued on the NIH web site. The web-TV
program will be piloted in targeted locations, including the Historically Black
Colleges and Universities, as well as the community based organizations that
serve as the local sponsor for the National Minority AIDS Council regional
meetings. A total of 19 entities have been identified for this effort. * A
pilot is scheduled for the fall at Clark-Atlanta University.

The NIH, through the
Office of AIDS
Research (OAR), has had an ongoing relationship with the
National Minority AIDS
Council. Through this relationship support has been provided for a variety
of programs targeting African Americans and other minorities. In addition to
sponsoring a one day research institute at the U.S. Conference on AIDS
sponsored by NMAC, the NIH has initiated discussions with the
National Medical Association on developing programs for
training minority physicians in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. This
initiative represents an expansion of ongoing OAR work with national minority
organizations and regional/local agencies. Under this initiative there are
additional collaborations planned with a variety of national minority
organizations (e.g. National Minority AIDS Council, National Medical
Association) to provide information updates for health professionals.

Project ACCESS (Adolescents
Connected to Care, Evaluation and Special Services)

Description of Initiative:

This is a social marketing campaign intended to: (1) raise
consciousness among sexually active minority youth about the need for HIV
counseling and testing; and (2) to provide youth with easy access to HIV
counseling and testing, which incorporates efficient and graceful transition
into adolescent-focused comprehensive care. The campaign consists of producing
a "Get Tested Week" campaign launch, community saturation by peers with
literature promoting the phone line for testing, a public service announcement
for television and local movie theatre use, and campaign advertisements in
public venues, public transportation, and in places where adolescents gather.

NIH's interest in this campaign stems from the increasingly
important biomedical and therapeutic research agenda emerging for HIV-infected
adolescents. There is real discordance between the estimated number of HIV
infected adolescents and the limited number of HIV+ teens who actually are in
care. This campaign is designed to begin the process of identifying and
bringing more HIV+ adolescents into care. This will assist the individuals
concerned while providing them with opportunities for prevention and clinical
research. The program could help establish clinical infrastructure and patient
volume so that research participation opportunities might be offered to an
important understudied population.

Eligible Entities:

Adolescent clinics within the
NIH-funded
Adolescent
Medicine HIV/AIDS Research Network, selected based on willingness and
ability to launch the campaign in their metropolitan areas. Applications were
reviewed by a committee with state health department and CDC representation.